>> The Honda Civic just is not a bare bones car anymore. This one for example is a hybrid. It has some very cool in cabin tech. Let's jump inside and go for a green look.
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First of all, our Civic Hybrid has the navigation package. It's like a trim level the way Honda presents it and here's the nav unit. A lot to like here. I've told you before, I like all the discreet buttons on this vehicle. Buttons alone aren't always great, but the way they've done these, to me is very smart, very intuitive, low learning curve. Here's the magic button. You press the open and the whole thing rotates up and this reveals some of the audio options. Here is a single disk cd player, MP3 and WMA. Also here the oddball, the PC card slot. Now I've been calling that names for quite a while now but one of our viewers Ryan, did remind me you can get PC card adapters into which you could put an SD card let's say and slide that in there. So at least that'll bridge that crazy slot to what people actually use today. But it still strikes me as weird. But it's not a bad idea. Easy to close, that button. The navigation screen here is one of the better ones. It's not ultimate cutting edge in resolution and in the way it's been rendered, but it's very clear and most importantly we have a touch screen going on here. So it's very easy to get around things, to make changes, to enter a destination, what have you. Other audio source options on this vehicle, aside from the PC card and the cd slot, include obviously AM and FM, but you see here XM Radio and that is standard on a navigation equipped car. Optional if you don't get the nav. We've also got an auxiliary jack down here, right next to a 12 volt plug, right next to a handy bin where your MP3 player can live. Good ole Honda ergonomics. Now let's move on to the drive train. Always a fascinating part of any hybrid car. The first indication we see is this, the transmission is a CVT, continuously variable transmission. Again, the only option available in the hybrid Civic. Instead of using a fix set of gears, 4, 5 or 6 of them, it has an infinite set of ratios between two variable sized pulleys. It's a whole different way to do a transmission and the key behind these is to keep the engine, basically in the sweet spot of RPM all the time. You'll also find the car shuts down at a stop, unless you tell it to keep the air conditioning on, in which case it has to keep the engine running to do that. But what really matters is where does all this power come from? Let's go take a look. This car has a 1.3 liter in line 4 as it's gas engine. Now a few years ago, that would have been fine to run a Civic all by itself. Well 20 years ago. Today, a Civic has ballooned to in this case, 2800 pounds curb weight. That's why you gotta have a little bit more going on. So the electric motor with the gas engine gives you 110 horsepower, 123 foot pounds of torque, 49/51 is the EPA mileage rating and again, integrated motor assist means it never runs solely on the electric motor. This is also an advanced technology PZEV, partial zero emissions vehicle. Pricing on this car is 24,300 and the only options that we'd be interested in are 560 some odd bucks for the 8 disk changer and a few hundred dollars more for XM if you didn't get a nav model.
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